The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight the volunteer summit in Philadelphia; we have excerpts plus an interview with Senate Leader Colin Powell; Jeffrey Kaye reports on Los Angeles five years after the Rodney King riots; Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks to Japan's Prime Minister Hashimoto; and Tom Bearden reports from Virginia on the military approach to classroom teaching. It all follows our summary of the news this Monday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton called a day for big citizenship as a substitute for big government. He spoke in Philadelphia to 3,000 people attending a three-day volunteer summit. He said he wanted to expand the number of scholarships available for AmeriCorps workers and to provide $20 million in federal grants to students who will be police officers after graduation. Former Presidents Bush and Ford attended the event held in front of Independence Hall. They signed a pact, along with Nancy Reagan, called "America's Promise." Its aim is to help disadvantaged children through mentoring programs and community service. Retired General Colin Powell, the chairman of the summit, said all Americans should pitch in.

GEN. COLIN POWELL: The real answer is for each and every one of us--not just here in Philadelphia but across this land--for each and every one of us to reach out and touch someone in need. All of us can spare 30 minutes a week or an hour a week. All of us can give an extra dollar. All of us can touch someone who doesn't look like us, who doesn't speak like us, who may not dress like us, but, by God, needs us in their lives. And that's what we all have to do to keep this going.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the summit and an interview with General Powell right after this News Summary. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a police case today. It voted five to four to limit the financial liability of local governments if their officers use excessive force. The court also let stand a lower court decision upholding a Baltimore ordinance that banned billboard ads for cigarettes and alcohol in public areas frequented by children. On the flood story today a major bridge was reopened as more people filtered back to see the damage caused by the Red River. We have more from Fred De Sam Lazaro of KTCA-St. Paul-Minneapolis.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The Kennedy Bridge linking Grand Forks, North Dakota with East Grand Forks, Minnesota, opened today for the first time in a week. It's a small step in what will be a very long recovery. Many streets, homes, and businesses remain inaccessible; however, by yesterday, the floodwaters had receded enough for city officials to begin letting some residents and business owners back for brief visits.

LYNN STRAUSS, Mayor, East Grand Forks: The biggest concern that we have had is electricity turned on and you go into these homes; they're wet, the possibility of somebody getting electrocuted. So we are working with the water and light department to make sure that electricity is shut off so that nothing will happen to anybody who enters their home, whether it be wet carpet, or whether it be the basement that you go down into.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Bob Caulfield returned this afternoon to survey the damage to his downtown Grand Forks portrait studio. Everything lower than three feet off the ground was lost, including graduation and family portraits, pictures that he fears may well have been lost to the flood in their owners' homes as well. Caulfield did purchase some flood insurance but still figures his losses will be at least $100,000. He's lucky. Just down the street lie the ruins of 11 downtown buildings that burned during the flood. For safety reasons they've been razed. City officials say it will be several days before electricity, sewage, and water hookups will be restored and building safety inspections completed so their occupants can return to stay.

JIM LEHRER: Arrest warrants were signed today for an armed Texas separatist group. Rapid reaction teams were sent to the scene of a stand-off between the separatists and law enforcement officials. The incident started when so-called Republic of Texas militia men grabbed two neighbors as hostages. They were freed overnight but police say 90 to 150 people remain trapped behind a militia roadblock. The separatists want to make Texas an independent republic, as it was from 1836 to 1845. Their fortified compound is located in a resort area in the Davis Mountains of West Texas. The Air Force confirmed today Captain Craig Button crashed with his A-10 jet fighter in Colorado. Scientists in Washington used DNA tests to identify the human remains removed from the snow-covered wreckage. The plane disappeared April 2nd during a routine training mission in Arizona. Button veered off course some 850 miles with four 500-pound bombs on board. His jet was found April 20th on a Rocky Mountain peak. The Air Force has appointed a board of officers to investigate the accident. Overseas in Zaire today Hutu refugees returned to a camp near the capital of Kisangani and reported killings by rebel forces. The rebels have given United Nations aid workers an ultimatum to get the Hutus out of Zaire. We have more in this report from Alex Thompson of Independent Television News.

ALEX THOMPSON, ITN: The U.N. has just 60 days to find, feed, gather, and airlift 80,000 or more people scattered across this dense rain forest. Tonight they're already pleading with the rebels for more time. Five thousand appeared from the jungle today, disease-ridden, exhausted, scared out of their wits by whoever attacked them five days ago. The victims blame Kabila's rebels. This boy said they were Kabila's men, "Rwandans, I tell you, not Zairians, we know the difference between the two." Only yesterday Laurent Kabila promised to give the U.N. full access, yet, today his men stopped officials going beyond Biaro. Kabila protests his alliance is innocent. Tonight officials say they found several people hacked to death in Biaro Camp. Furthermore, U.N. officials in Geneva confirmed that soldiers abducted about 50 starving children from a hospital in Eastern Zaire on Saturday night. And today the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. had arrived for talks with the ailing dictator Mobutu tomorrow.

BILL RICHARDSON, U.N. Ambassador: The United States firmly believes that there can be no military solution the crisis, but, rather, a negotiated settlement leading to an inclusive transitional government and fair and free elections.

ALEX THOMPSON: He'll see the rebel leader, Laurent Kabila, on Wednesday. After weeks of obstruction, there's still no definite plan for a Kabila-Mobutu meeting.

JIM LEHRER: Back in Washington at the State Department today Spokesman Nicholas Burns said the U.S. rejected the 60-day deadline as unreasonable. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the President's summit, the Los Angeles riots five years later, the prime minister of Japan, and the military approach to teaching. FOCUS - BIG CITIZENSHIP

JIM LEHRER: The President's summit in Philadelphia is our lead story tonight. President Clinton, former Presidents Bush, Ford, and Carter, along with former First Lady Nancy Reagan, urged Americans to volunteer to help at-risk youth. Our coverage begins with their remarks this morning. President Carter spoke by satellite.

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: This summit can be the beginning of a renewed commitment to our children, but the real revolution will take place only if we carry this new spirit of Philadelphia back to our own neighborhoods and turned it into action. The divisions between those of us who have many opportunities and those who feel they have none are growing deeper. Children are dying in body and spirit. I urge you to reach out from the safety and security of your life and extend a helping hand to someone who really knows only fear. Hand in hand we can create a network that will ensure that our children will do more than just survive. They will thrive.

FORMER PRESIDENT GERALD FORD: Sadly, every day the news media reports a growing number of broken homes, inadequate single family problems, drug problems, rampant in our schools and on our streets, with gang warfare loose in metropolitan communities. Should we surrender? Should we capitulate to the worst elements and the challenges in our society? The answer is emphatically no.

FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: I believe that the key to the American dream is education. And at the most basic level it gets down to one "r," reading. Barbara and I are deeply troubled to know that 2300 teenagers drop out of school every day. And this is more than a terrible loss to America. It's an epidemic. It just seems wrong that 6 + million American kids between kindergarten and the third grade are growing up illiterate. Something's gone wrong. But I am thankful that something right is starting to happen at this summit because Americans are starting to take upon themselves to point our kids in the right direction on the road that leads to the American dream.

FORMER FIRST LADY NANCY REAGAN: Ronald is such a caring person. He's always been moved by human kindness, so for him and for me I ask a special favor of everyone watching or listening today, from this day forward when someone asks you to help a child, just say yes. [Applause] Thank you.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You and I know that a lot of the problems facing our children are problems of the human heart, problems that can only be resolved when there is a one-on-one connection, community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street, home by home with every child in this country entitled to live out their God given destiny. You know it is true. As I have said repeatedly, the era of big government may be over, but the era of big challenges for our country is not, and so we need an era of big citizenship. That is why we are here, and that is what we should promise ourselves we will do.

JIM LEHRER: Now a conversation with Retired General Colin Powell, the chairman of the President's summit. Elizabeth Farnsworth talked with him last week before the summit got underway.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Thank you very much for being with us, General.

GEN. COLIN POWELL, Chairman, Volunteer Summit: Thank you, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Lots of people volunteer their time in this country. Why do we need a summit?

GEN. COLIN POWELL: A lot of people do volunteer their time. That's one of the great things about this nation. We are very philanthropic, caring, compassionate people. But I just believe we could do a lot more, and that's what the late Gov. George Romney thought when he suggested the idea of a summit. We've got all of the living Presidents together, Republican and Democrat, leaders from around the country, governors, mayors, and all come together and say this is an issue that should transcend politics, transcend urban versus rural, transcend race, transcend gender, class. Let's see if we can get a base line of what we're doing and leverage it up, do a lot more.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But toward what end? In the military you would have a goal that you would look back and say we achieved that goal. What's your goal here?

GEN. COLIN POWELL: The mission is to provide to 2 million additional youngsters by the year 2000 the five following resources into their lives, if these resources are not there now, a relationship with a responsible, caring adult. There are too many youngsters who do not see such a person in their lives. And you really can't learn taboos and traditions and experience of the past unless you have an adult to give that to you, to instruct you, give you discipline. There are too many youngsters who do not have a safe place to go after school in the afternoon, a safe place to learn and grow. That's the second resource. The third one is to increase the capacity of our youngsters to gain marketable skills outside of school and technical training, but in the actual workplace, in businesses, in shops and stores, and factories and internships and mentorships and apprenticeships, things of that nature. And the fourth one is a healthy start in life. Too many of our youngsters are showing up in the first grade; they need glasses; their hearing hasn't been checked; or they have some physical problem that hasn't been taken care. And that youngster is not ready to learn. And we sort of try to give every kid a healthy start. And the fifth resource is a little bit different. It's kind of the obverse. It says to young people, listen, you're going to be a real citizen in this country; you have to serve; you have to do something in service to your community, a community that's given you such opportunity. So we want youngsters to give back by tutoring younger children or working at a hospice or homeless center. And a number of our states, such as the state of Maryland, has already made that a graduation requirement from high school. Somebody was asking me the other day, well isn't that wrong, why should you have this sort of compulsory program in high school, isn't that against the rights of the youngster, and my reaction was, I think it's an important part of education. And if you want to know what violated my rights, it was integral calculus, not community service. And I would much rather have the option of community service. But I think we ought to push our youngsters a little bit in this direction so that they see that service is an important part of being an American citizen.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And why are you involved in this? All the things that you could be involved in, why do you care so much about this, what are you seeing out there, what problems?

GEN. COLIN POWELL: I spent 35 years with young people. I spent 35 years of my adult life with millions of wonderful young men and women, and I saw what can happen when you give them structure and discipline and a sense of purpose and being and mission; you give them a healthy start in life; you train them; and you make them feel good about themselves.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Of course, that's a public institution that's there, the military, that is very well run.

GEN. COLIN POWELL: It is very public. It's a very public volunteer institution but, nevertheless, public and very well run.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Lots of money available for it.

GEN. COLIN POWELL: Lots of money available to it. But then when I retired from the army and began to write my memoirs and travel widely around the country on a speaking circuit, I found that I kept running into young people who didn't have that kind of experience that I saw in the army and the kind of experience that I had as a child, you know, growing up in a home with two parents in the nurturing environment of relatives and church and school and work at an early age. They didn't have that, and a lot of these youngsters were starting to give up on America. They're more worried about whether they're going to get killed tomorrow than they might get cancer 30 years from now.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Killed in their own neighborhood.

GEN. COLIN POWELL: In their own neighborhood by neighbors. Drugs are a pathology. They don't see the sort of economic opportunity that I saw when I was coming along, and I started to sense some despair in parts of America, not among all American young people. Most American young people are going to be just fine. They're great. But we have too many of them, we think 15 million, who are at risk. And they are not coming up in the kind of supportive environment that they need to be successful, especially in this very demanding age we're going through. And I could think of no better use of my time than to try to do something about this. And I'm very, very pleased to be a part of the summit and more importantly a program which will follow from the summit, which we call "America's Promise, the Alliance."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Explain how it will work. You've got a lot of corporate involvement. The corporations have promised a lot of money, manpower, woman power.

GEN. COLIN POWELL: Yes.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Specifically give an example of money, problem, and how--who decides when the money comes in, where it goes. Explain that.

GEN. COLIN POWELL: We think many of these promises that are being made by corporate America can be self-executed. For example, earlier today All State Insurance came in, and they made a specific commitment to work with Boys and Girls Clubs of America, an existing non-profit, to introduce and expand a program that talks about being a smart teenager, providing mentorship training, violence avoidance, anti-drug messaging in a number of Boys and Girls Clubs in a number of cities. Now what All State says is we're going to double the number of cities that we are providing that service in and we're going to make a commitment over the next several years of up to $25 million in additional investment in money and in kind. And I said, thank you very much, All State, I'm very, very proud of you, but the actual execution of that will be between All State and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, two existing organizations.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now money and volunteers that may come out of this, what--how do you know that they make any difference? I'm really raising a question about efficacy of volunteers. As you know, it's hard to judge some of those things. There aren't a lot of studies about it. How do we know that mentoring makes any difference, and how do you make sure that these are well trained volunteers? I've taught school. A volunteer in the classroom who doesn't know what to do can be just another child to take care of.

GEN. COLIN POWELL: That's right. And it is not a panacea. It is not the solution to everything, and not every volunteer effort is still around two, three, four years from now. But it is also absolutely clear, at least from my experience, as I go around to Boys and Girls Clubs and see Big Sister and Big Brother programs, and Children's Health Fund of New York, and all the other places I see, that there are some successful volunteers out there who are doing a marvelous job throughout this country, and I'm convinced that we can get even more of them. Now, how measurable is it all at the end of the day? With respect to mentoring we do have statistics, we do know. We do know that if you take a group of youngsters who do not now have responsible, caring adults in their lives and you give the a mentor and that mentorship relationship works. You have to have a trained mentor. Somebody's going to stick with it that understands the problem of mentoring. Then there is about a 50 percent likelihood that those youngsters will turn out okay because what do most children want? They want somebody who loves them, rewards them, punishes them, gives them structure, gives them the box in which they can be safe and grow in, and let's them know what their boundaries are, and let's those boundaries grow gradually as the child grows. Right now we're taking youngsters who are born to teenagers, and we're throwing 'em out in the street, and saying, here, go find out how to do it. But there are no boundaries and no structures, no traditions, no taboos, no spirituality. None of this is there to help the child. A story to tell; my wife was talking to a group of young girls in one of the inner city schools recently, and she was talking about what it's like to be a successful woman in life and married and children, and one of the nine-year-olds raised her hand and said, "What's married? What do you men married, will you tell me about it?." And what she was saying to my wife is that there is no married; this isn't a model I know in my neighborhood. We've got to intervene in that. We can't wait for these generations to correct themselves. They'll just perpetuate themselves. The farm teams for the jails of tomorrow are out there now.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How do you keep this from being not just a spectacle where people really are committed; they really feel good for six months or a year and then it's just one more disillusionment for most people, what do you do about that?

GEN. COLIN POWELL: It's not so much what we do in Washington or what I do as General Chairman of the follow-on program. It's what happens in the communities. And there are going to be over 30 governors there. It's what they do when they go home. There will be over 100 mayors--

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You really have to inspire them to follow up?

GEN. COLIN POWELL: We have to inspire them, but we have. I mean, for example, Gov. Pete Wilson is coming to the Senate to tell the whole summit and the world about his personal commitment and the commitment of the state of California, a public gathering of people, to create 250,000 mentoring relationships within the state of California over the next several years working with private partners. So there you have the government, then the non-profits working together, but with the governor personally making that commitment and creating a staff to make it happen.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: It's inevitable that with this sort of very high profile event, people are speculating that it's also a platform for you to run for the presidency in 2000. What about that speculation?

GEN. COLIN POWELL: There is nothing I can do about that speculation. There is no basis to it. It does not represent anything in fact or in fiction with respect to my life at this point.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Still not interested?

GEN. COLIN POWELL: This is what I'm committed to. This is what I'm committed to, and I'm not interested, and I'm making a contribution in private life, and that's where I plan to stay.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, General, thanks very much for being with us.

GEN. COLIN POWELL: Thank you, Elizabeth.

JIM LEHRER: The summit continues through Tuesday. We'll have some of the pros and cons of volunteerism on the NewsHour tomorrow evening. FOCUS - AFTER THE FIRE

JIM LEHRER: Now, the economic aftermath of the Los Angeles riots. Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of one of the nation's worst civil disturbances. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles reports.

JEFFREY KAYE: Five years ago Los Angeles poorest neighborhoods exploded. Three days of riots and looting followed the acquittal of police officers charged in the beating of black motorist, Rodney King. Fifty-five people died; two thousand were injured. Eleven hundred buildings were damaged or destroyed. The clean-up began immediately, but five years later there are mixed views of what's changed in South and South Central Los Angeles, the areas most affected by the civil unrest. About 80 percent of damaged properties have been rebuilt. At the riot's flashpoint at the intersection of Florence and Normandy Avenues there's a new auto parts store. Four miles away former basketball player "Magic" Johnson has built a movie theater complex. Non-profit groups have developed hundreds of new housing units. The mayor of Los Angeles, Richard Riordan, says the LA economy has turned around since 1992.

RICHARD RIORDAN, Mayor, Los Angeles: Our city income, revenue is back to its all time high. The jobs have increased dramatically. Even aerospace defense have gone up the last two years. Entertainment is at an all time high. We've become the international trade capital of the United States, over $173 billion going through our Customs district. LA is definitely back.

JEFFREY KAYE: Not the LA Eugene Grigsby sees. Grigsby is an urban policy professor at UCLA. In LA's urban core there are an estimated 200 vacant lots, casualties of the riots, and Grigsby sees a glass that is half empty.

J. EUGENE GRIGSBY, Urban Policy Professor: There's bifurcation of the economy. It is growing, for the most part, very well at the top. Those are high wage, high tech growth sectors that are doing very well. The other part of the economy that's growing is the low- tech service, low-wage, low-benefit jobs. That's growing very fast, but that's not paying sufficient amount of money to--for people to survive very well in the Los Angeles economy.

JEFFREY KAYE: Five years ago, a week after the riots then President Bush toured what remained of the Crenshaw Plaza. At the time the LA economy was sliding. Manufacturing and aerospace jobs were disappearing. Unemployment and homelessness were on the rise. As rebuilding started the federal government pumped in hundreds of millions of dollars in loans. Civic leaders launched Rebuild LA, or RLA, to try to attract investment. Its then president, venture capitalist Peter Ueberroth, offered a rosy projection.

JEFFREY KAYE: Five years from now what's LA going to look like?

PETER UEBERROTH, Former President, R.L.A.: [March 1993] I think the inner city will look more like the suburbs, hopefully.

J. EUGENE GRIGSBY: It doesn't look like the suburbs to me. No.

JEFFREY KAYE: Grigsby says that although the economy in general is improving, LA's large homeless population estimated at more than 60,000 shows that the have-nots have been left behind. And the neighborhoods hit hardest by the riots-- predominantly Latino and African-American--remain mired in poverty.

J. EUGENE GRIGSBY: This is an area representative and reflective of what I'm calling the working poor. Most of these people are working every day; their kids are going to school; but they're just barely making enough to pay for their meager rent and to buy groceries and keep food, clothes on their kids' back, and any little catastrophe and they can go from this location down to the skid row type of environment. And this group here represents the fastest growing group of labor in the Los Angeles economy right now.

JEFFREY KAYE: The two sides of the LA picture are mirrored at the Crenshaw Plaza, the site visited by President Bush. Like other places rebuilt since the riots security here--guards and fences-- has been increased since before the unrest. While many of the mall tenants have returned, discount stores and fast food restaurants reflect a low-income clientele. Dentist William Faulkner escorted President Bush on his 1992 tour. He's back working on patients in a new office at the same site.

YOUNG LEE: [May 29, 1992] Everything gone. Everything gone.

JEFFREY KAYE: Young Lee lost the discount store that she and her husband ran for nearly 25 years. At the mall today she is back in business, but the problem, she says, is business is not good.

YOUNG LEE: They don't have no job.

JEFFREY KAYE: Lee says many nearby residents are unemployed and that every day job seekers come by looking for work.

DR. WILLIAM FAULKNER: Unemployment is here in the inner city just the way it was before.

JEFFREY KAYE: Just the way it was before.

DR. WILLIAM FAULKNER: Just the way it was before. It's just the same amount of people, you know, basically walking around with nothing to do. That really hasn't been changed at all.

JEFFREY KAYE: Dr. Faulkner says new buildings mask a deeper reality.

DR. WILLIAM FAULKNER: You could put a hammer to a nail and, you know, stucco, and put some plumbing, electricity in, and you can repair the physical aspects of the demise that had taken place. But as far as the people, the people have not been repaired, and the people are what tore these buildings down.

JEFFREY KAYE: Linda Griego is more optimistic. Griego, the outgoing president of R.L.A., says the area's poor communities are home to 15,000 small to medium sized manufacturing firms. She believes they reflect a healthy part of the economy.

LINDA GRIEGO, President, R.L.A.: What I found in terms of-- specifically about the economy is that these little companies were actually doubling their sizes. And they were--the work force is predominantly immigrant.

JEFFREY KAYE: According to R.L.A., small businesses and industries such as foods, apparel, toys, and furniture manufacturing are responsible for $54 billion in annual sales. That finding convinced Griego not only that LA's industrial economy was growing but that R.L.A.'s original intent, trying to coax large companies to move to Los Angeles, was wrong.

LINDA GRIEGO: So what we did is we changed the focus to look at what strength does the community have already, can we build on what we already have, and that's what we've been doing is building on the smaller companies, because as they grow, our unemployment goes down, and as they become more competitive and improve their productivity, wages go up.

JEFFREY KAYE: That's been the case at Cisco Brothers, a furniture manufacturer owned by Francisco Pinedo. Five years ago Pinedo employed 15 people. Today his company's work force numbers 150.

FRANCISCO PINEDO: We have people who started working for us making minimum wage, you know, four or five years ago. Now, you know, they make 9, 10 dollars an hour.

JEFFREY KAYE: But some merchants have not been so fortunate. There are about 150 vacant lots, the sites of liquor and convenience stores destroyed in the riots; like this one owned by Desung Huang, the majority are owned by Korean Americans. Huang has had to work for friends since his own liquor store was destroyed. He says he hopes to rebuild soon but he complains the city has made it difficult for liquor store owners to get back in business. Griego has little sympathy.

LINDA GRIEGO: Many of those 150 plus vacant properties are former liquor stores. They are not likely to rebuild.

JEFFREY KAYE: As liquor stores?

LINDA GRIEGO: As liquor stores. The community that is surrounding those particular properties, in many cases, has said not here; we have enough liquor stores; we want other kinds of services.

JEFFREY KAYE: A few former liquor stores have been converted to Laundromats, and in some of the riot-torn areas, there are new food stores. But there is general agreement that much remains to be done. Non-profit developer Anthony Scott has renovated a hotel, theDunbar, and built 41 apartment units, Somerville Place, as well as a child care center. But he says his work is a drop in the bucket, given the need.

ANTHONY SCOTT, Dunbar Economic Development Corp.: Somerville Place and the Dunbar, that's just a small dot in the larger context of this overall community. That's going to make a difference, but it's not nowhere near going to make the kind of differences necessary to "turn this area around."

JEFFREY KAYE: There is also universal agreement that to turn the area around better education and job training are badly needed.

MAYOR RICHARD RIORDAN: Every person should have access to a quality living wage job or access to the middle class, but that will never happen unless children, young adults are given the tools to compete, which means a strong education system. And when you consider in the inner city today a six-year-old has about a 12 percent chance to read and write at the eighth grade level, we're not giving those tools. And the other side of that is that businesses are not going to come to LA unless they have the skilled labor to do it. Right now we're importing skilled labor from other countries because we don't have the educated people in LA to fill those jobs.

JEFFREY KAYE: Some programs are underway to teach job skills. The Carpenters Union is helping inner city residents enter the construction trade. The Urban League and Toyota have trained some 400 auto mechanics in a new school erected soon after the riots. But for every step forward there are fears of many steps back. In particular welfare reform will send many in this community in search of jobs that right now don't exist.

LINDA GRIEGO: We've got welfare reform looming. This is something that's going to happen, and we need to be prepared for it. We need to produce more jobs, be able to help some of these companies create more jobs because we can't wait till that reform takes place and we find that people don't have a means to live.

JEFFREY KAYE: Government and private groups have ambitious lists of plans for the area's future development, but five years after the riots promises that LA's urban core would come to resemble the suburbs still seem like distant dreams.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight the prime minister of Japan and military teachers. NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Now a Newsmaker interview with Prime Minister Hashimoto of Japan. He met with President Clinton last Friday to talk about security in Asia and economics in general. And he talked with Charlayne Hunter-Gault at Blair House.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Prime Minister, yokoso, welcome

RYUTARO HASHIMOTO, Prime Minister, Japan: [speaking through interpreter] You speak very good Japanese.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Prime Minister, I know that much of your conversation with the President had to do with security issues, and a lot of U.S.-Japan watchers say this was a very different summit because the principal focus wasn't trade, is that correct?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] As you have touched upon, the United States for us is the most trusted and most reliable friend. Of course, the Japan- U.S. security treaty is a very effective regimen, however, for a long time our discussion tended to focus too much on defense of Japan. Last year, when President Clinton was in Japan, the two of us issued the joint declaration on security in which we reaffirmed importance of the Japan-U.S. security arrangements. Now, we are doing the review of the guidelines for Japan-U.S. defense cooperation which is to have more effective defense cooperation between the two countries. In other words, we're trying to find better ways to cooperate to the U.S. forces as well.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, one of the things that the U.S. Secretary of Defense said recently was that he anticipated a large American presence in the region into the indefinite future. Do you agree with that?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] In the Asia-Pacific region the situation could be described as quite different from that in Europe in that we have too many uncertain factors in the region still. The Korean Peninsula situation is one example, but there are many others as well, so the fact that the U.S. forces are in Japan does serve our benefit as well as at the same time by providing the basis for U.S. forces. We're securing the presence of the U.S. military forces in the Asia-Pacific region as well.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: What kinds of threats do you see justifying that kind of American commitment?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] I will take one characteristic example of North Korea. There is the suspension of the dialogue among the United States, the Republic of Korea and North Korea.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The top ranking North Korean official who recently defected said just the other day that he--that North Korea was preparing for war. Do you have confirmation of that or any indication that this is the case?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] I think no one can be very sure of what North Korea exactly thinks, but it is certain that they have severe food shortages and they were about to embark on really dangerous nuclear development, but thanks to the initiative taken by the U.S. and the Republic of Korea, we have decided to provide light water reactor and the Japanese government is actively cooperating as well. I wouldn't like to predict that there is a great danger ahead of us; however, despite the national starvation, they are putting money into the development of long range missiles- -a deployment. And if this happens to be true, we cannot help being alarmed by it and be ready for the consequences.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The United States and other nations are considering sending food aid to North Korea, but Japan has said it won't do it. Why?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] We have provided humanitarian assistance, including food assistance, not only to North Korea but also to regions in the Middle East and Bosnia. So we have been implementing those programs in wide-ranging areas, and we can be proud of that. And we are asking the North Koreans to pay attention to humanitarian issues on their side as well. Those people of North Korean ancestry residing in Japan can go back and forth freely between Japan and North Korea. There were quite a few Japanese women who married North Koreans back in the 60's, and they went to North Korea. But we have not received any letter from any of those Japanese women ever since. They've never come back to Japan to see their parents either. They have not been heard from ever since. So I have been strongly requested by the family members, the parents that are concerned about the health and well-being of their child, or the brother trying to take care of his younger sister, but we have requested many times the North Koreans to provide this information, and there is no answer.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You see China more as a potential ally than adversary?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] Maybe not an ally but the presence of China in this Asia Pacific region the presence of that big country is not deniable by anyone, and it does have very sizeable amount of influence in this region. That's a fact. So rather than seeing China as adversary, we should try our best how to incorporate China as constructive partner of this region that will serve the benefits of Japan and the U.S. and also the interest of the region as a whole. When I had the summit meeting with President Clinton last year, I urged him to improve this relationship with China, and I said that Japan on its own will try to improve the relationship with China as well, so we talked about our mutual cooperation to have China participate in the WTO for example as early as possible. And also in July this year Hong Kong will be reverted back to China from UK. And we have major challenge ahead of us after the reversion of Hong Kong if the framework to have the economic prosperity in Hong Kong could be maintained.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Are you concerned about the possibility that China will clamp down on Hong Kong, denying its civil liberties and freedom and abusing human rights as many are at this point and there have been indications of some of this already in China's behavior; is that a big concern to Japan?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] We do have some concern, of course, but at the same time I think the Chinese leadership are fully aware that China stands to lose if they try to crush the system that has made possible the prosperity in Hong Kong.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Has Japan said that to China?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] Yes, we have.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: And the reaction?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] I think reaction depends on the individual. Some did not seem very pleased but others--some others said specifically said that they have no intentions of eliminating the basis for the prosperity of Hong Kong. And I think in reality the Chinese will be very cautious in their approach towards Hong Kong, because if they are to crash the basis for prosperity for Hong Kong, they will lose major market opportunities. But we are not quite sure exactly- -the people in Hong Kong may feel they have enjoyed freedom so far and they may feel constrained by the basic force of the Chinese society.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: How prepared is Japanese public opinion in particular for Japan to take a more active role in its defense in the region, provided some of these problems bubble up?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] I think there is going to be much national debate inside Japan because the Japanese tended to focus more on how to be protected by the U.S. forces, but now we are beginning to explore the boundaries of our cooperation with the United States forces. So if we have this national debate, I think I can better answer your question at that time. I must say that for a long time the Japanese tended to view our relationship with the U.S. forces as something to be protected by the U.S. forces, and that awareness has not been changed completely yet.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Sounds like you wanted to change.

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] Yes. And we are seriously exploring how much cooperation is possible under our Constitution.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Prime Minister, changing the subject briefly, how much compatibility or conflict do you see between your vision of reform and Japan and the U.S. push for deregulation, market forces? I mean, your thrust has been to protect the underdog, to preserve elements of the bureaucracy, and those might be incompatible with the vision the U.S. has. What do you think?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] I am now initiative six reforms--in Japan, those six reforms are the administration reform and fiscal structural reform, economic structural reform, social security reform, financial system reform, and education reforms. I think we have made much progress on the regulation, and there is expanding opportunities for the U.S. businesses in Japan. I talked about this with the President yesterday, but last year when the President was in Japan, I heard that President Clinton was fond of Starbuck's coffee, so we had to have embassy here buy it. Today we have Starbuck's coffee in Tokyo, so yesterday I told the President that he can come to Tokyo any time to enjoy Starbuck's coffee there.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Prime Minister, finally, let me turn to Peru, and the successful outcome of that crisis. Has that caused Japan to re-think its position on how it deals with terrorists, in some cases--in all cases preferring safety over the kind of action that the Peruvian president took, because Japan has even paid ransom to terrorists to free hostages. Are you re-thinking that position now?

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: [speaking through interpreter] We have changed our thinking. This time we did have some temptation that there may be a possibility for the release of hostages if we were ready to offer some financial resources; however, we chose to challenge terrorism, but at the same time we did pursue the possibilities for peaceful solution. But I had no intention of paying ransom to the terrorists, but I've raised the prices, I should say, of the Japanese public. Of course, there were so many lessons to be learned from this incident, and it's very memorable, and we're very appreciative that the American government people, and many other countries in the world offered kind advice and cooperation up to the solution of this incident.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Well, Mr. Prime Minister, thank you.

PRIME MINISTER RYUTARO HASHIMOTO: Charlayne, thank you. FOCUS - MILITARY SOLUTION

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight the military approach to classroom teaching, a second career option. Many retired military personnel are exercising these days. Tom Bearden reports from Norfolk, Virginia.

TOM BEARDEN: Master Sergeant James Down is still doing push-ups after 20 years in the Marine Corps, even though he's just a few months shy of retiring.

MASTER SGT. JAMES DOWN, U.S. Marine Corps: And one, two, three! One--

TOM BEARDEN: Down is training this unit of younger Marines to go into administrative work in the corps, jobs more behind desks than in a war zone. But he, nevertheless, has to make sure they stay in shape to meet the Marines' fitness standards. Down often spends a large part of his day in front of a blackboard, here reviewing a final exam that students must pass in order to be promoted. But at night the master sergeant becomes the student. Down is studying for a master's degree in education from Old Dominion University in Virginia, preparing to launch a second career as an elementary schoolteacher. It's an opportunity Sgt. Down says he would never have believed possible 20 years ago.

MASTER SGT. JAMES DOWN: A high school dropout tenth grade, didn't have anything going for me. I barely completed the 10th grade. So, now. I would have never suspected that this would happen. Throughout my years in the Marine Corps I learned the value of an education, and I started going to college. I earned my four-year degree, and now with Old Dominion's program I'll have my master of science in education. And I want to--I think I want to give back because I don't want to see kids go through kind of the same things that I went through. And I feel that the experience that I've learned in the Marine Corps traveling around, I've just gained so much knowledge the time that I've been in, plus the schooling that I've gone to, that I think that I can really make a difference for some kid somewhere.

TOM BEARDEN: Down is enrolled in Old Dominion's Military Career Transition Program, which allows him to take classes at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia while he finishes up his military career. The program began in 1988 just as the Pentagon started is long, post Cold War drawdown. It was launched partly because of a national survey which revealed that a surprisingly large number of military personnel were interested in teaching after retirement. Program Director Robert MacDonald thinks the program's popularity stems from the fact that the military is itself a gigantic teaching machine.

ROBERT MacDONALD, Military Transition Program, Old Dominion University: When a young man or young woman enters the military they go through basic training. Then they go through advanced training. And all through their military career they're either going to school, or they're training. Many of the skills that they learn in the military have a direct correlation to what we want for the best practices in teacher education, and specifically I mean team planning, group work, collaboration, a sense of mission, a sense of purpose, and self-critical.

TOM BEARDEN: Old Dominion is located in Norfolk, Virginia, and MacDonald realized that being located near the world's largest naval base meant a big pool of potential teachers could be tapped. Most participants in the program received tuition assistance either from the military or the federal government. More than 800 officers and non-commissioned officers have graduated since the program began and are teaching in 39 states around the country. This is Navy Pilot Tom Procilo six years ago getting into the cockpit of an F-14, a high-tech fighter he flew on various deployments around the world. Procilo spent 14 years flying for the Navy and could have earned a hefty salary in commercial aviation after leaving the service.

TOM PROCILO, Mathematics Teacher: [talking to class] Gentlemen, quiet down. Okay. You guys had a couple of easy days. We need to get some work done.

TOM BEARDEN: Instead, he's teaching math at the Center for Effective Learning in Virginia Beach, an alternative school for kids who have been suspended or expelled from other schools. Some have even spent time in jail.

TOM BEARDEN: It's a long way from the deck of an aircraft carrier to hear.

TOM PROCILO: Yes, it is, a very, very long way.

TOM BEARDEN: How does it compare?

TOM PROCILO: In some respects it's the same. In other respects it's completely opposite. For the most part the same part is the stress, even though flying an aircraft onto a carrier is a stressful, it's just as stressful once that door closes and I'm in a class with ten to twelve kids. These kids are all demanding. They all want something of us immediately. They do not know patience. They do not know how to wait. So I'm usually catering to two or three of them at the same time, if not all ten or twelve of them. So there the stress level does get quite high. In fact, at times it's been higher than when I was flying and being shot at.

TOM PROCILO: [talking to student] Leonard, you're kind of heading towards another good day today. It'd just be my guess, but I think you're heading towards another good day.

TOM BEARDEN: The majority of Old Dominion graduates are men, and Procilo thinks having a male teacher is advantageous for children, especially in a school like his. Unlike the military his students will not automatically do what they're told. Just getting them to show up and sit quietly in their chairs can be a major accomplishment. He says that's where his military training helps.

TOM PROCILO: What I bring in here mostly is my discipline that I've learned in the military, and these children here in an alternative setting require discipline. They require discipline strongly, something that they miss of their home life. A lot of them are children from single parent families where the single parent is quite busy with their job or raising the family, itself. So they're not seeing a lot of discipline in their home, which gets them into trouble in a regular school, which then gets them sent here to an alternative school, which is where we take over. I have built up a fairly good relationship with several of my students. And it's quite rewarding for me personally to get in with them to the point where I feel as though I can change their lives.

MAJOR CAROL HENRY: The Army and the Navy would have to rotate as commanders, and it was going to start--it was a three-star position--

TOM BEARDEN: This was Major Carol Henry when she was in the Air Force, here describing to officers at the Airlift Operations School how the different services function at military airports.

CAROL HENRY, Teacher: [teaching class] I think you'd better concentrate. You're going to have the girls beat you again.

TOM BEARDEN: Like Porcillo she's now in her first year of teaching. She also works with children who have serious academic or social problems. But she says her military background alone isn't enough to make a difference.

CAROL HENRY: They joke with me about my military bearing because I showed it in my classroom. You know, I don't let them cut up in class and I ease up every once in a while but most of the time they know where I stand, and some of them will say, I knew you were in the military because you act like this is--we're in the military. This is like boot camp. I said, well, because I'm expecting you to do what's expected of you in the classroom, yes, but for military people to come in and think that just because they've been in the military and it's going to impress these students, it doesn't happen; they can care less.

TOM BEARDEN: Henry's principal, John Diggs, thinks her background and approach has helped some but not all of her students.

TOM BEARDEN: How have the kids reacted to her?

JOHN DIGGS, Principal: I think initially when they came in it was sort of a different approach that they were unaccustomed to, someone who came in and said this is what we're going to do, and we're going to begin doing it today, and we're not waiting a moment more. That approach was something that I think it sort of a little uncharacteristic for new teachers that come into the teaching profession.

TOM BEARDEN: Is there anything about the military approach that they respond to that's better, the same now, or worse than any other approaches?

JOHN DIGGS: Not any worse. I think we'll find out that some of the children that we have had had some difficulties, the one thing that they all want is they want to know what the boundaries are. And in her classroom the boundaries are very easily seen. They know how far they can go or not go, and so once they start edging up to that line that they can't cross, Ms. Henry quickly brings them back into where they should be.

TOM BEARDEN: So why do people like Marine Corporal Annissa Delk, who have highly salable skills--she's a flight controller--want to teach school for relatively low salaries? Service people who retire after 20 years in the military receive pensions and medical benefits which obviously help, but Delk only did a four-year tour of duty.

TOM BEARDEN: You're not doing this for the money?

CORPORAL ANNISSA DELK, U.S. Marine Corps: Obviously not. Teachers' salaries are not very competitive in the professional world, which is quite surprising, especially with a need and the vacancies that are available. You would think that there would be vast resources, but as a whole, teachers don't make very much money, so you're definitely not in it for the money. You're definitely in it for something--a lot more--something that's not material.

TOM BEARDEN: And that could be just what the teaching profession needs at a time of severe teacher shortages and declining test scores. [Military Training Session]

TOM BEARDEN: The military may prove to be an unexpected but valuable resource for American public schools. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, President Clinton told the volunteer summit in Philadelphia that big citizenship should replace big government. Texas separatists and police continued a standoff in the West Texas Mountains. Ninety to one hundred and fifty people are trapped behind a militia roadblock. And in Zaire, U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson said the United States wanted to negotiate an end to Zaire's civil war. We'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening with more on volunteerism, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.